First Names Group wins Kitchen Inferno 2015

1 December 2015

Last Friday saw Jersey’s ultimate charity cook-off, Kitchen Inferno, come to fruition with a fantastic evening at Hotel De France, hosted by celebrity chef John Torode. We are thrilled to announce that Team Blue, sponsored by First Names Group and led by our very own Matt Haynes, were crowned the winners!

Now in its third year, Kitchen Inferno is a charitable initiative organised by Jersey-based creative agency Freedom Media, in aid of Jersey Cheshire Home. Following two months of intensive training with three top local chefs, Team Blue and Team Red went head-to-head at Friday’s exclusive evening event – serving up a challenging three-course fine dining menu to 150 guests.

Half the guests received their food from Team Blue and the other half were fed by Team Red. The guests were not told which team was serving them and at the end of the meal they were required to complete a points card, marking each course out of five for taste and presentation.

The food was all delicious and the result was closer than ever before, with both teams achieving 83 points each. This meant the competition went to “deadlock” and it was down to the three chef mentors to choose their winner. All three voted Team Blue!

Team Blue was led by our Group Business Development Director, Matt Haynes. He was supported by a team of 10 novice chefs from a range of different businesses and media outlets, including our Assistant Manager for Marketing, PR and Communications, Rachael Horsthuis. The rest of Team Blue consisted of:

Tim Bond, Freedom Church

Derrick Bracken, Franck Muller

Brian Constantine, ITV Channel Television

Ben Davies, Gallery Magazine

Jo Ferbache, Cimandis

Charlie McArdle, BBC Radio Jersey

Nick Payne, A&E

Glenda Rivoallan, Healthhaus

Margaret Thompson, Thompson Estates

Both teams were also skilfully assisted by Culinary Arts students from Highlands College.

This was the second year First Names Group has been involved with the event, with our CEO Cengiz Somay leading Team Red in 2014.

Kitchen Inferno 2015 has raised in excess of £25,000 for Jersey Cheshire Home, to help cover the costs of refurbishing their swimming pool. Contributing towards this total, we First Names managed to personally raise £2131 through a company pub quiz and sale of raffle tickets.